This is the class blog for Eng 1102 at GA Tech called "Fiction, Human Rights, and Social Responsibility." The purpose of this blog is to extend our discussion beyond the classroom and to become aware of human rights issues that exist in the world today and how technology has played a role in either solving or aggravating them. Blogs will be a paragraph long (250 words) and students will contribute once every three weeks according to class number. Entries must be posted by Friday midnight.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Another State Set to Reject the Death Penalty

Maryland
is on the path to becoming the sixth of the United States to reject and outlaw
the death penalty. Governor Martin O’Malley has openly and strongly opposed the
death penalty, a verdict five men are currently facing in Maryland. To display
his determination, O’Malley is pressured to commute the sentences of these men
because, though they will not be affected simply by the impending law, this is a
power he possesses.

The death penalty as a whole is
often regarded as a sign of cruelty, reserved only for those the law determines
to deserve death. But this is a black and white verdict for a very gray-scaled situation.
The penalty is “an inherently
irreversible and inhumane punishment”; it cannot be reneged, as is the
case for many other punishments. Once committed, a person faces only death.

I personally have always believed the death penalty to be
extremely cruel and only necessary or acceptable in few circumstances. Though
the numbers of those served this penalty have decreased, it is still
administered to about forty-three prisoners a year. The alternative to the
death penalty is a lifetime prison sentence without the possibility of parole.
Personally, I find this to be a more acceptable sentence.

Though the law is in place for a reason, I do not believe it
should have the power to condemn people to death. Though this is the punishment
reserved for murderers, it seems far too cruel in an “eye-for-an-eye” sense.

In the end, it seems Maryland is following in what is hoped
to continue as a succession of outlaws of the death penalty. Perhaps, in the
future, more states will follow in banning this “inhumane punishment.”